LA Times: The bible of baseball cards

Provided courtesy of Brett Gideons International:

Boyd and Harris were twentysomething baseball geeks who worked together at a Boston bookstore. The idea, Boyd remembers today, came when a customer requested a book about baseball cards and he and Harris realized that there was none. After the store manager, Richard McDonough, left to become an editor at Little, Brown, he signed the pair to write their baseball card book.

At once irreverent and nostalgic, “Great American” is a hybrid of Roger Kahn’s “The Boys of Summer” and Mad magazine. The first section is devoted to Boyd’s memories of collecting cards in the 1950s and early 1960s, at “corner stores that were never on corners. Variety stores completely lacking in variety. They were generally owned by middle-aged men with psoriasis—paunchy citizens with sallow complexions and sour outlooks, who wore plaid woolen shirts no matter how hot it was and little felt hats that had repeatedly been stepped on.”